Updating Body Armor Standards to Protect Police

A bullet can strike a police officer in a blink, so their body armor must be proven to work. Feeling more under fire than ever, the law enforcement community is raising the standards for ballistic-resistant police body armor to stop more rifle bullets, like those often used by active shooters, in an effort led by OJP’s National Institute of Justice.

[@kenofken9458]

So is the new 007 standard official now? Will manufacturers have to re-test everything they offer or will it be the case where they might sell current products listed as the old standard and subject new ones to the new standard? From what I've seen, the new rifle standards are much more sensible in the context of modern threats. On the old/existing standard, Level III is pretty good armor, but it's not good or at least reliable against 5.56, which is probably the most popular caliber in this country right now. At the other end, the Level IV is very good, but I'm not sure how the index threat for that, 30-06 AP, translates to a lot of real world situations. This is the round our grandfathers used in the Ardennes almost 80 years ago. It's probably more relevant that today's LE can have confidence in multiple hit capability for more ordinary rounds and for things that might be emerging threats such as .277 SIG Fury. It's hard to know what the future brings, but it's not too hard to imagine that where today's citizens (and criminals), favor AR rifles, the next generation of them might be commonly armed with a civilian version of the XM-7. There probably needs to be an evolution of making head protection standard for officers as well. Even with near-universal use of vests, too many officers are killed by gunfire, and probably many if not most of them are from head and neck wounds. On the one hand, it's not good to militarize LE too much, but there has to be a balance of safety too.

[@maximilianovasquez6506]

Floting vest if not NIJ